Azta'rec Delve Boss
The Midnight Season 2 Delve boss, Azta'rec, is currently testable on the PTR on both ? and ?? difficulty. Azta'rec is available in the Venomfall Deeps Delve on the Coiled Isle, the new zone for Patch 12.1.
There are many achievements for defeating Azta'rec including the updated Delve Hall of Fame which now is awarded to any players who defeat ?? difficulty solo, during the first week of the Season.
Azta'rec Abilities
Over the course of the PTR, the encounter has seen some changes since it was first available for testing, with an additional mechanic being added and abilities being retuned.
Main Phase
On ?? difficulty, Azra'tec has 3 intermissions, but outside of those intermissions, there's only has a couple of basic abilities:
Noxious Bile - a frontal cone that does ~1 million Nature damage.
Void Toxin - a Magic dispel that does high periodic damage, and reduces damage done by 40%
Soul Extinction - an Interruptable cast that does ~2 million Shadow damage.
Venom Storm - summons waves that cross the arena dealing ~700k nature damage.
This move set doesn't have a lot of mechanical complexity. Players will be tasked with dodging the cone and waves, and then either interrupting or dispelling (as Valeera will handle one). However, one of the things that players will have to deal with are his melee attacks. While Azta'rec's white swings don't seem to be as hard as Nulleaus, the boss was buffed in a recent PTR build and gave him a massive movement speed buff. This means that non-tanks will not be able to kite as easily and will have to worry much more about survivability. Meanwhile, tanks can easily tank the white swings, but they do also have to contend with a tank-only tankbuster ability, Serpent's Strike, but this doesn't hit that hard and shouldn't cause any additional issues.
Intermission
The Intermissions of Azra'tec occur at 90%, 60%, and 30% health and lasts a set duration. Azra'tec runs to the middle taking 99% reduced damage, and summons an Echo of Azta'rec on ?? difficulty. This Echo doesn't have a lot of health, and casts the same abilities as Azra'tec himself, but doesn't melee as hard.
While you're dealing with the Echo , Azra'tec channels Sermon of Ula'tek. Every few seconds, the boss will telegraph and then detonate three of the 4 quadrants of the arena dealing ~750k damage. This will happen 5 times in quick succession, and players must move to the safe spot every time while dealing with the clone's abilities.
Once the channel is finished, Azra'tec will repeat the same impact areas in the same order, but this time will not telegraph anything. In other words, players must remember the sequence of safe spots that occurred previously, and then go to those same spots.
I forgot the final location
Tank Privilege
There is currently a massive Tank Privilege on this encounter and unless things change, Tanks will be much easier on this encounter than any other role. This isn't new to Delve Bosses, as Tanks usually have no issues with surviving and only have to worry about doing the mechanics of the boss encounter.
This might be one of the easiest ones as a Tank though, as without currently needing to worry about the memory game, the fight is essentially Tank and spank with an interrupt. If you want to watch what this looks like, you can click below:
As of right now, if you want to prepare for this encounter next season, we would currently recommend a Tank, but this is subject to change before 12.1 comes out.
Reason #1: White Swings
White swings represent a large amount of damage on this encounter for non-Tank specs. Tanks can largely ignore the white swing damage due to their increased Armor and defensives, and the added tankbuster of Serpent's Strike doesn't move the needle at all. In addition, a recent change to the boss massively buffed the movement speed of the boss. While Nulleaus could be kited in Season 1, Azta'rec is much harder to kite now and only really possible when he's casting something.
Reason #2: Avoidable Damage Doesn't One Shot
There is a lot of avoidable damage on this encounter: the Venom Storm waves, the Noxious Bile, and the intermission memory game. However, these avoidable abilities only do enough damage to potentially kill a DPS, but nowhere near enough damage to kill a Tank. For example, the Venom Storm waves do about 600k damage which is easily survivable by a tank, but may cause a DPS to die when combined with white swings or other periodic damage. Tanks can even survive a missed kick with a defensive!
In addition, standing in the wrong quadrant during the Memory Game Wrath of Ula'tek only does about 750k Physical damage on Leather. However, for Tanks (who have higher armor and Physical damage resistance), the Memory Game damage seems to get reduced to 200k-400k Physical damage. This means that the main mechanic of the intermission phase can be trivialized by Tanks, who can ignore the memory aspect entirely and just stand still and focus on killing the Echo.
This is a massive change from Ky'veza, the War Within Season 3 boss, which punished all roles equally for failing the mechanic.
Mount Reward
By defeating ?? difficulty solo, you will earn the Let Me Solo Him: Azta'rec which grants the Apophic Soul Crusher mount!
